Wild Life by Liam Brown

A thought-provoking, darkly eloquent and decidedly quirky look at the dangers of success and the possible consequences of losing touch with ourselves and the world around us, Wild Life by Liam Brown is all of these things and much more.

Narrated by the main character, Adam, a highly flying executive with an apparently perfect life (wife, children, money and all of its trappings), it brilliantly shows the pitfalls of such an existence. Adam is spiralling out of control with drug and gambling addictions taking their toll until one night he walks away from everything. In a drunken stupor Adam finds himself in a forgotten park when he finally reaches his breaking point, which is when he meets Rusty.

Rusty leads Adam further into the wilderness of the park where he is befriended by a group of homeless men led by Marshall. The lifestyle these men lead is slightly surreal but the lack of the normal beer-guzzling, drug ridden cliches at this point is really refreshing. They have created an entire world for themselves with a small farm providing vegetables, foraging for herbs and even some chickens. The setting is almost idyllic with no real sense of time other than that which nature provides with dawn, dusk and the turning of the seasons.

Thanks to the leadership of Marshall there is a structure to their lives - yoga, running in the morning and work on the farm. All of which give Adam more of a feeling of reality and purpose than he has had in a very long time. There is, however, a strange 'Lord of the Flies' vibe from this point onwards and an underlying sense of violence just below the surface.

I felt it was slightly unrealistic that there is no mention of his family throughout this sequence but, with the reappearance of a loved one, Adam begins to take a more truthful look at himself. Unfortunately for him the situation within the group slowly descends into madness and destruction. This is a little far-fetched but ultimately a natural progression for the story. After all this is a work of fiction so no problem there.

The structure of the novel, with its seasonal sections, works well. With Adam's downfall in winter, rescue by Rusty and the rebirth inherent in spring, an idyllic summer giving him a reconnection with reality, the change of autumn and the eventual chaos and death winter can bring, it is easy to become engrossed in his story.

I can highly recommend Wild Life as a fine piece of fiction but also as an interesting twist on a phenomenon we all see everyday whether we want to admit it or not.